Dracula show boss warns BBC viewers horror series will give them nightmares amid backlash from gory trailer
DRACULA will give viewers “nightmares”, the show’s creator has warned.
Steven Moffat, who penned the upcoming BBC series, has revealed he wanted the drama to scare fans.
Speaking to Radio Times, Steven, 57, said: “I hope people have nightmares and jump and all that, but it is actually funny
“It’s not the kind of horror that harrows you and makes you feel that the world is a miserable, wretched place or whatever.”
The comments from Steven – who co-wrote Dracula with his fellow Sherlock scribe Mark Gatiss – come as the trailer for the show sparked a backlash from some frightened viewers.
The first trailer for the series – which sees Danish actor Claes Bang play the famous vampire – was released last month.
The short but creepy trailer gave glimpses of a group of satanic nurses pulling out knives, a creepy castle and bloodied hands.
A woman lets out a blood-curdling scream at one point before Dracula is finally seen grabbing a terrified man by the throat and telling him: “Try and stay calm…you’re doing very well.”
However the footage left many viewers freaking out at all the gore, and it even came as a surprise to Mark.
He told RadioTimes.com: “It’s really much more graphic than I thought they’d want from a teaser. There’s a lot of good gore in it.”
But he added: “Of course it’s not just gore, people mistakenly think that horror is synonymous with that. “Obviously, it can be, but psychological shocks and psychological horror – a lot of this really gets under your skin in quite an interesting way.
“It’s not just about tonnes of blood splashing over him.”
The creative team insist the gore was essential to telling the classic gothic novel properly.
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Executive Producer Sue Vertue added: “It’s Dracula. You can’t watch it and think ‘I’m scared! There was some blood in it!’”
Meanwhile Claes revealed the high levels of blood was one of the main reasons he accepted the role of the Count.
He said: “They want this to be funny, sexy, but they really want it to be scary.
“I said ‘ok, good’. It should have those elements of true terror and horror and shock.”